An enjoyable mystery that keeps readers on the edge of their seat. Mystery fans will definitely enjoy this books.

After reading two other thrillers by Eileen Cook I knew that I had to read You Owe Me a Murder. Again, just like with the other two books that I had read previously I found myself quite engrossed from the very start.

Kim is a seventeen year old high school student who had signed up to go on the school trip to London back when she and her boyfriend were together. Having just broken up with him though she’s not looking forward to a couple of weeks in a foreign country watching him with his new girl.

When trying to back out of the trip her parents insist she still goes so Kim finds herself sitting next to Nicki as she heads off across the ocean. Nicki and Kim seem to completely hit it off as they both air their complaints to one another which leads to some joking around about swapping murders to make each happy. Thinking this was all some drunken ranting the two part in London but before Kim knows it her ex has a tragic accident…. or was it murder?

Again as I have found with the author’s other works this book seems like you have all the cards on the table from the very beginning but yet still pulled me in and wouldn’t let go. There’s something about her style that makes me want to turn the pages faster to find out just what really will happen to these characters in the end. While not super twisty I still completely enjoyed this latest thriller giving it 4 1/2 stars and will definitely be back for more in the future from Eileen Cook.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

What do you do when your ex-boyfriend turns up dead and the murder wants to be paid back?

This book has a slow start, but I really enjoyed it towards the end when more information was given about Nicki. I do think the middle was sort of fluffy in content and dwelled too much on the inner ramblings of Kim, but what can you do? The idea of Nicki is extremely interesting and her personality and manipulative ways makes her a fearsome character that you have to watch for in the story.

I felt like this book had so much potential but it just fell short for me. The premise was so intriguing and I love a good mystery, but the characters felt flat and the plot didn't catch me. The character I liked the most was a secondary character that didn't really have anything to do with the mystery. The book was just good, nothing more. I think my expectations for the book we too high, so I'm still recommending it because it might just be me.

Kim is stuck on a trip to London with a bunch of other kids she doesn't know... but more importantly, her ex and his new girlfriend. She's not mad at the new girlfriend; she's mad at Connor, her ex. He broke her heart and now she's going to have to spend a fifteen day trip with him.

But at the gate waiting for her flight to London, she meets Nicki, a British girl who was in Canada visiting her family. Nicki seems cool and sophisticated and Kim instantly likes her. On the plane, Kim and Nicki talk about the problems they're dealing. Kim rants about Connor; Nicki rants about her mom. Then they start to joke around... neither Connor or Nicki's mom deserve to live. The perfect crime would be if Nicki kills Connor and Kim kills Nicki's mom. But to Kim, it's obviously that this is all a joke.

A few days later, though, Connor ends up dead. And Kim receives a note. It says, "You're welcome."

This is a fun, quick-paced read for anyone who's into YA thrillers. Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for a digital arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I could not get into this book. I made it about halfway through before adding it to my Did Not Finish pile. I'm sorry. I appreciate the opportunity to read the book, but it just wasn't for me.

I knew this was a "Strangers on a Train" knock off and I was fine with that. Especially since my students are completely unlikely to know what that is so it will all be new to them. But I ended up so disappointed in the execution of this and with Kim in particular. I know she has to make some dumb mistakes in order to keep the blackmail plot working, but she couldn't have been more passive in controlling her own fate, starting with keeping it a secret that she ever dated Connor. That decision didn't make sense no matter how the author tried to explain it. And then there was just the escalating series of dumb decisions the led to lying to the police over and over. Again, I know some of this is necessary because if you go tell the police and they solve the crime, the story's over, but I cannot forgive how even in the very end Kim gets out of this situation with no action on her own part. Again and again she gives herself the "work the problem" pep talk and tries to come up with a solution. Each time I thought "Okay, NOW she's going to take the reins and turn the tables on Nicki!" I was primed for some self-empowerment and excited to see Nicki falter when her easy mark turned out to be tougher than imagined. But it never happened and I felt no relief for the end of the tension other than that I was finally done with the book. It's okay that Kim has no backbone for the first half of the book because she has to get into a bad place, but please write her a way out of this that is of her own making with some clever thinking.

I was super excited to get my approval for You Owe Me a Murder!!

Let me start out by saying I love the title of this book! It's catchy and pulls you in right away.

Kim travels to Europe for a study abroad trip and her ex boyfriend and his new girlfriend happen to be on the same trip. Talk about awful! But, her luck seems to be arising when she meets a new girl Nicki on the plane and they instantly bond as friends. Soon things start to heat up with gossip between Nicki and Kim. Nicki suggests that they make a "list" of why Nicki should murder Kim's ex-boyfriend and why Kim should murder Nicki's alcoholic mother. Kim laughs off this list and falls asleep on the plane thinking that this is harmless.

But, the next thing she knows.... Kim's ex boyfriend is killed from jumping or being pushed off a train. What is going on?! Who did this and is Nicki somehow involved?

This was an entertaining wild ride that definitely leaves you on the edge of your seat. Eileen does a nice job of adding plenty of suspense to the story but it was a tad predictable for me and knew where the story was going. Kim is soon blackmailed by Nicki and this got a bit over the top for me with the back and forth chase. The middle to end was lagging a tad for me as well but kept reading because I was hoping for that bang of a buck ending with whiplash!!!

But, unfortunately the ending was a big let down for me. I felt Eileen took the easy way out with the ending and was hoping for a huge twist.

Overall, this was entertaining but was just hoping for a little bit more in this YA thriller.

Thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's Publishing Group for the arc via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Published to Goodreads: 1/20/19
Publication date: 3/5/19

Because I wrote a Young Adult suspense novel (The Blondes of Bel Air) with a murder mystery element, I am very intrigued with other YA books that are full of suspense! When I read the description of You Owe Me A Murder by Eileen Cook, I knew I had to get my little hands on it!

Here’s the synopsis:

17-year-old Kim never expected to plot a murder. But that was before her boyfriend dumped her for another girl. Now, Kim’s stuck on a class trip to London with him and his new soulmate and she can’t help wishing he was a little bit dead, even if she’d never really do that.

But when Kim meets Nicki, a stranger on the plane who’s more than willing to listen to Kim’s woes, things start to look up. Nicki’s got a great sense of humor, and when she jokes about swapping murders, Kim plays along—that is, until Kim’s ex-boyfriend mysteriously dies. Blackmailed by Nicki to fulfill her end of the deal, Kim will have to commit a murder or take the fall for one.



If you love twisty, dark, thrillers set in London (I do!) then you are going to love this book. I really enjoy an unreliable, unlikable narrator when done right and this is! A must-read for fans of suspenseful YA.

Due out March 5.

YOU OWE ME A MURDER is a solid page-turner whose high concept plot kept me in constant suspense. It's the classic "Strangers on a Train" conceit: two strangers meet and agree to swap murders. Except our protagonist, Kim, never actually agree--she thought they were joking, Nicki, the stranger she meets on a plane, does not.

Nicki was frustratingly menacing, and that's a compliment. I was SO UPSET with her at every turn, and my brain was twisting, re: what on Earth could Kim do? What would I do in the situation? (ultimately Kim does something fairly similar to what I would have done, ish) Nicki's an excellent antagonist, though as is the case with many thrillers with a super fast-paced denouement, I would have loved digging in even further into her identity/motives, etc. at the very end.

Kim is an interesting protagonist. There was enough specificity--love the angle with her mommy blogger mom--to grasp onto her and relate to her, but she was also "general YA heroine" enough that most readers should be able to relate to her. Meaning, she's meant to be a socially awkward nerd, and I got enough of that to relate to (because, uh, that's me) but she's not FULL ON socially awkward nerd, if that makes sense. She's readable and followable.

Connor, her ex, is a massive douchebag, as expected. Alex, her love interest, is adorable and I love him. No complaints there. The "side characters" on their student tour were barely present, same with Tasha the tour guide, which makes sense given the pace of the novel, though I do wonder if there might have been some more opportunities to ground us in the "reallness" of the student tour mid-book? I've been a student in London and Kim felt super disconnected from her program. (I'm SHOCKED they let her skip so many activities, honestly)

My quibbles are with a few of Kim's decisions and where the narrative went. The key for me when I'm reading a thriller is logical choices... balanced ever so carefully with the occasional irrational slip from an imperfect heroine in order to propel the story forward. It's highly subjective, and for me one of Kim's early choices as it related to telling Alex something so that the police detectives could be more involved really stretched logic for me. It made me think Kim was kind of dumb? Also FLOORED she never tried even once to use Google-fu to track down more info on Nicki--that would have been my first move. And then there's one specific "twist" at the end, a brief interlude where Kim is questioning her own sanity that really stretched believeability for me. But! These aren't dealbreakers.

I'm still sitting with the ending and how I feel about it. Ultimately it feels like the only logical conclusion, but I'm also unsure? I don't want to say more for fear of spoilers, but I expect the ending may be divisive among some readers.

If you're looking for a high-concept YA thriller that reads fast, I recommend YOU OWE ME A MURDER. It's a fun, diverting read with great stakes. Thank you to HMH and NetGalley for providing an ARC for review.

This definitely kept me turning pages, despite the far-fetched plot in which an American student in London is being pressured into committing a murder following a chance drunken encounter on her plane trip over. It's definitely going to hold the interest of any young adult with a taste for psychological thrillers. Not the best one I've ever read, but not the worst by a long shot.

*Review will go live on March 5th*

I keep getting drawn to these YA psychological thrillers.  There is something about them that always have the possibility of being incredibly interesting and I have always loved a good mystery.  With that said, I think I again suffer from being a little too harsh on this book because I wanted it to be a bit more of a classic mystery novel instead of a thriller.

All that aside, I really enjoyed this read overall!  I liked all of the characters and thought that they all were believable and brought something fun to the table.  I particularly liked the boy Kim was partners with on the trip who was hilarious.  I even thought the situation that triggers the whole plot into action (the main character Kim getting drunk on a flight and talking about how she wished her ex-boyfriend who was also on the trip would die) was surprisingly plausible.  I think the book did a good job getting to the main conflict rather quickly and it was compelling to see Kim go through various stages of trying to figure out how to handle getting blackmailed but not wanting to commit a crime of her own.  I do think around this point is where the book started losing a little steam and I found myself a little frustrated with Kim as a character since she did a whole lot of fretting that seemed to really drag out parts of the book which could have moved a bit more quickly.  Several reveals were quite fun and I really appreciated one in particular near the end.

Overall, I think this is a fun, quick read.  I could really see some students of mine getting sucked into this story and being delighted by some of the twists along the way.

This book follows Kim, a high school student is who going on trip to London as part of a Youth Program. She originally wanted to go with her boyfriend, but now that they have broken up, she is stuck with him, his new girlfriend, and 5 other students. On the plane there she meets Nicki, a very outgoing girl that is everything Kim wishes she was. Kim and Nicki complain about the ex boyfriend and Nicki's mother. Nicki suggests that they pull a Strangers on a Train and murder for each other. Kim thinks nothing of this until her ex boyfriend ends up dead and Nicki comes after Kim to murder for her too.

I had previously read another book by Eileen Cook so I was looking forward to this. I liked that there were twisted throughout the book, and that not every was as it seemed. It was a fast paced read and it a fun journey to follow. My biggest problems with it were that sometimes, especially in the beginning, the book dragged, and that some parts were predictable. After reading Cook's last book, which had a real mind bending twist, I was hoping for something that level, but that never happened. It didn't make the twists any less enjoyable, though. Overall, I found this a fun thriller to read.

I really enjoyed this whole book, from start to finish. It was one of those books that screams unique and MUST READ! I completely agree with the synopsis when it says this one is great for fans of E. Lockhart and Gillian Flynn (I’ve yet to read One of Us is Lying, but I absolutely will be now). It was full of these insane twists and turns that made me NEED to know what was going to happen next.

Kim was a very relatable character, who I couldn’t help but love at the very beginning. I feel like while being very plot based, it was also a very character based book as well. That being said, I don’t think I should say anymore about our main character. It’s best going in on your own and having your own thoughts.

If you are looking for a fast-paced, quick, edge of your seat thriller YOU HAVE IT HERE!! I know I have so many caps in this review, but it’s hard not to when you find a book like this. Every time I thought I knew what was coming next I felt like I was punched in the face because I was so wrong.

This is exactly the type of dark and suspenseful read my students are gobbling up these days. I can't wait to share this one with them.

This is going to be a huge hit with my YA readers. It’s got mystery and death and twists and turns. I had a hard time putting it down. There are a number of intriguing aspects built into the text that will keep the interest of readers.

Teens will love the drama, the twists & turns, the red herrings, and the romance in this fun, fast novel of suspense.

A bit far fetched, but a fun and quick read. I really think this one will go over well with the teen crowd. As an adult, I think I expected...more. I guess that's the right word. I read it and it was okay. But it's not one that I will go shouting from the rooftops for everybody to purchase...

First, thank you Net Galley for the ARC of this book I was given in exchange for a fair and honest review.

So, it finally happened. I’ve started missing the protagonist you’re meant to hate trend. That’s largely because hating a protagonist is much better than having no feelings at all, especially when the reason is that the character is incredibly blah. It’s not that Kim, our main character, was stupid (she was) or hopelessly clingy (she was that, too); the problem with her character was that she simply wasn’t interesting. It wasn’t compelling to be inside her head; she wasted so much time being mopey over a boy she’d just met (right after the last guy she was hung up on had been murdered in front of her). And can I just say, I even kind of get that; I was boy crazy at her age. It’s just such a leap that she goes from being so hung up on Connor to being so Gaga over Alex that she can’t stop moping around even while trying to solve her problem.

Nicki is far more interesting, but even she is kind of cheated on the end. I won’t give a real spoiler because what’s the point in reading a review if you aren’t going to read the book, but I’m not really sure about how they reduce her whole story to a girl being salty over a guy. It’s a little insulting that the book boils down to two supposedly smart women being completely willing to implode their whole lies because what? They were scorned in love? Nope, not a fan.

I did like Alex, though. Yes, I get the slight irony of me being angry at these two characters for letting a boy be the center of their world when a boy was my favorite part of the book, but I can’t help it. He was so sweet and endearing....although his character, too, was flawed. There was all this commentary about him being a needy homeschooled boy and being so awkward, but he was actually a pretty smooth operator. He wooed Kim straight out the gate and always knew exactly what to say. It felt very much like that thing where people pretend to be geeks because geek is chic now and I’m not really here for it.

It kind of bums me out how easy the ending was because I think the concept was really cool. The idea that human beings can be capable of so much more ugliness than we give them credit for was one that could have been so much more flushed out if the characters were more compelling. They just didn’t Have the psychological depth for this storyline.

https://bibwithblog.blogspot.com/2018/10/you-owe-me-better-ending-my-review-if.html?m=1





3/5 stars. Not a hard pass, but you could miss it.

Tl;dr: Looking for a contemporary young adult novel that's not afraid to go dark? This one's for you. And for you too! A must *must* read.

You Owe Me A Murder seems like a typical ya thriller at first: mc, Kim is in the airport waiting to go to London on a trip arranged for high schoolers with her ex, Connor, and his new girlfriend. She's miserable and dreading the trip and more than a little angry at Connor. Yes, this sounds familiar, I know.

Then we meet Nicki. She's British, on her way home, and even though she's a year or two older than Kim, she gets it. Gets her. They talk, have fun, snd Nicki talks her into doing something that leads to something else and wow, do things start happening.

Unexpected things--not plot wise, not at first, but soon there are cracks everywhere in everyone.

No one, not Nicki, not Connor, and most interestingly, Kim, is not whom they seem to be. I loved that! Ms. Cook takes the ya thriller genre and gives it a good shove (ha! couldn't resist) and what results is a novel that doesn't just dare to go dark--it dives into it.

I was interested when I first started reading, but by about two thirds through, I realized I didn't know how it would end and couldn't put the book down. I had to keep reading! Had. to.

I mean, there's the expected ya ending--the nice neat safe bow-- but I thought "could you Owe Me A Murder go there? Would it?"

It does, and even veteran thriller reader me got chills when I reached the end. There's no bow, no safety, just a mindblowing, fantastic ending.

By the end, I was in awe of Kim and more than a little afraid of her. Of what she did. Of what she'd done.

Of what she might one day do.

Last three lines:

"You know what they say: Travel changes a person."

I nodded and gazed out the window. He had no idea.

Dammmmmmmn. Mind=blown. All the stars for this highly, highly recommended novel that dares to be different. That knows there's darkness in all of us.